


She Would Never Ask for Help

by The_Hobbit_Ninja



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, pov elliot stabler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29816367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Hobbit_Ninja/pseuds/The_Hobbit_Ninja
Summary: “You told him, didn’t you?”Fin just nodded. The captain sighed.“Maybe it’s for the best. She’ll go crazy on her own, and we all know she’d go to her grave before she’d ask for help.”“You think Elliot’s goin’ to see her?”“Is that even a question?”
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Elliot Stabler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello beautiful people! I recently watched "Undercover," and I really wished Elliot had been a bigger part of the episode. What is fanfic for if not to fix things like that?! In this fic, I decided that Kathy and Elliot got divorced in season three, cause we can't have Elliot be a cheater and we also can't not get him with Olivia, haha. I'm not sure if this will actually be a "getting them together" fic or just a more platonic thing, but either way it's easier if Kathy is safely out of the moral picture, lolXD Anyway, I hope you enjoy! If you like the story and want another chapter, let me know in the comments! Hearing from you guys makes the day so much better:)  
> Have a wonderful day, darling!
> 
> WARNING: This fic does contain rape mentions and slight descriptions, but if you've seen the "undercover" episode, it is not nearly as involved as that. Proceed if you feel comfortable doing so!
> 
> P.S. If you like LOTR, Star Wars, The Madalorian, Derry Girls, or want more SVU content, make sure to check out my other fics right here on AO3! Gotta love some blatant self-promotion, hahaXD

Elliot knew something had happened to her. He knew it. But she wouldn’t just admit it. He cringed internally at that phrase, admit it. He made it sound like she was the one at fault. Like she’d done something wrong. He hated himself for wanting to know so badly. He hated himself for trying to pry it out of her. He hated himself for picturing all the scenarios, for running through the million horrific things that man could have done to her. That was the one that disgusted him the most, that he couldn’t stop picturing it. He hated it because he had interrogated dozens of filthy scumbags who got off fantasizing about women being raped. But this was so different; he would rather have thought about anything else, absolutely anything, but the horrific images wouldn’t dissolve no matter how hard he tried to block them out. He felt like thinking about what could have happened was somehow an invasion of her privacy, like by dwelling on what he couldn’t avoid, he was complicit. He had been trying to find a roundabout way to get the truth out of her since the day she came back. Her eyes hadn’t been right since her time in Sealview; they were glassy, vacant, filled with something chillingly reminiscent of the look he’d seen in hundreds of others.

A few days after she came back to work, he’d dug up some photographs relating to the case they were working on. Without thinking he’d come up from behind her and lightly put his hand on her shoulder, making to hand the photos to her. The second he touched her she’d flinched violently, jumping backward and losing her balance, crashing into the desk behind her, hand on the gun she always carried. She’d explained it away the best she could, trying to make it funny, but her eyes gave her away. She looked hunted, cornered, afraid. The fear hurt him. He had made Olivia afraid. He hated it. 

Elliot sat at his desk, pen in hand, hand on desk. He had been trying to finish this single sheet of paperwork for fifteen minutes, not even writing a line, not checking a box, not even reading it. It had been two weeks since Olivia had gone undercover at Sealview. I should be over it by now, he reprimanded himself. In the same thought, he realized that he could never be “over it” until she was. And if over a decade of working in the special victims unit had taught him anything, it was that rape victims don’t just “get over it.” 

Rape victims. The words sounded almost ridiculous when applied to Olivia. There was nothing victim-like about her; she was strong, tenacious, fearless, just plain badass. Somehow that made it worse...the strong ones were always the hardest on themselves. I like a fighter. He had heard those words far too many times in the rare “lucky” cases where the assault was caught on tape. Those four words always made him wince; what was more insulting to a woman struggling to get out from under someone than to be laughed at, to be told that her frantic terror and tenacious clawing at freedom was only serving their attacker. Had Oliva been a fighter? he wondered. No, he shouldn’t think about it. Had she screamed for help, had she begged for mercy? Shut up shut up shut up! Had she tried to get away, or had she just lain there and taken it, praying it would be over faster that way? SHUT UP! 

He slammed his pen down on the desk in immense frustration. If it was this hard for him, he couldn’t wrap his mind around how hard it must be for his partner. 

“You ok?” 

Elliot nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden interruption. Fin chuckled. 

“Is that scary paperwork makin’ you jumpy? Not like you’ve done any of it.” 

“Uh I, uh, was just...it’s late, hard to focus.”

Fin pulled a chair over and sat down opposite him. They were the stragglers of the night. Olivia had gone home, though Cragen had nearly resorted to outright threats to get her to leave. Munch had been gone since the millisecond his shift ended. All the others had filtered out one by one, till Fin and Elliot were the only ones left, muddling through procrastinated paperwork, along with Cragen apparently doing the same in his office. 

“What’s been wrong with you lately?” Fin’s talent for cutting to the core of an issue immediately was nearly unmatched, Elliot thought wryly. He fumbled for an excuse for a minute, trying to think of something at least somewhat believable. 

“What happened to Olivia?” So much for tact. 

Fin sighed. He had been there when Olivia nearly pulled her gun on her partner from the slightest touch. He’d seen the ptsd lurking behind her compassionate, straightforward personality. He knew through the years Elliot and Olivia had become more of a unit than most married couples ever would be. He also knew that Liv might just kill him if he explained. 

“Are you gonna kill the guy if I tell you?”

“That depends.”

“It can't ‘depend.’ Are you going to do something stupid or aren’t you?”

Elliot sighed. 

“I won’t.”

“Are you going to run and try to be her hero? Cause if you so much as knock on her door after eight she’s going to have a panic attack.”

“I won’t.”

“Are you gonna tell her I told you?”

“God Fin are you going to tell me or not?!”

“Alright alright keep your hair on.” 

Fin took a deep breath and a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Cragen was safely packed away in his office, out of reach of the conversation. 

“There’s not really much to tell. Liv started asking questions, getting the girls all riled up about how things were run in Sealview. The CO was supposed to take her down to solitary, but he took her to the basement instead. I got a bad feeling about that guy, and the other victim’s description sounded too similar to this situation. When I got there she was on the ground cuffed to the wall, and he was over her with his pants open. He was-” Fin cleared his throat nervously, seeing the raw, murderous rage in Elliot’s eyes. His jaw was clenched so tight his teeth hurt like hell, his fists balled up at his sides, nearly shaking with irrepressible anger. Fin finished quietly, “he was pulling her mouth open. That’s when we got him.” 

Elliot was already out of his seat, yanking his jacket off the back of the chair, fumbling for his keys. 

“Ey, you said you wouldn’t do anything!”

“And you believed me?!” 

With that he was gone. Cragen emerged from his office, fixing a questioning gaze on Fin. Realization followed quickly. 

“You told him, didn’t you?”

Fin just nodded. The captain sighed. 

“Maybe it’s for the best. She’ll go crazy on her own, and we all know she’d go to her grave before she’d ask for help.”

“You think Elliot’s goin’ to see her?”

“Is that even a question?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't super long, sorry! Personally I prefer writing many short chapters versus a few long ones, it works better with my writing style and with my crazy schedule. Hope you don't mind!  
> Enjoy:)

She couldn’t breath. She desperately tried to drag oxygen into her lungs, but the simple function evaded her. She sat in the corner of her living room, curled into a ball, hands buried in her hair, eyes squeezed shut, rocking back and forth. Every light in the entire house was on, every door was open. She knew all about this behavior; hadn’t hundreds of victims described this exact pattern? When they asked her, she told them it was PTSD, expected paranoia, hypervigilance, or a million other sterile sounding diagnoses that could all be neatly tied up with “and it isn’t your fault.” Yes, Olivia thought, for the victims, it wasn’t their fault. For her? Well, for her, it was weakness. She shouldn’t have demanded answers. She should have fought harder. She should have prepared better. She should have hidden better. She shouldn’t have panicked. She shouldn’t have been scared.  
She sighed into her hands. She knew this type of thinking was counterproductive. She knew, but she couldn’t stop. Ever since she was a little girl, self-deprecation had been her defense. Repetitive insults had been thrown at her for so long she gave up deflecting and just took them. By the time she was twelve, she realized that tearing herself down was actually quite handy when reality was too much to handle. She used the technique quite frequently, to be honest. In middle school, when a group of tenth-grade boys nearly knocked her teeth out and made her face look like one big bruise, it had been her fault, because she hadn’t just given them her lunch money. When her mom used the belt until she couldn’t sit down, it was her fault for looking like her father. When she failed the criminology class freshman year of college after refusing to sleep with the professor, it was her fault for not studying hard enough (nevermind the countless hours and all-nighters spent obsessively editing and researching). When she’d been a literal inch away from being raped it had been her fault for talking back. She was simply unlovable, plainly not good enough, how could she ever expect Ellio-

A sudden sharp sound made her thoughts freeze mid-insult, every fiber of muscle in every inch of her body wound tight to the point of snapping. The knock was repeated. There was a voice outside. She didn’t dare breathe, didn’t dare disturb the air enough to chance a noise. She drew tighter into the corner of the living room, drawn together like a cornered animal. The rational part of her brain knew that someone knocking on your door was not directly correlated with death, but the instinctual part of her was dialed into the memories. 

_The doors and crates smashed in, one by one. Every sound was a crisis of flashing adrenaline. He threw her towards the mattress. The handcuffs dug into her wrists, cruelly asserting her powerlessness. She was alone with this man, and he would take whatever he wants. Whatever he wants. Whatever he wants. What every guy wants. His hands on her were repulsively warm, sweaty, groping, greedy. She cringed away from his touch. She was on the ground, arms above her head. She was begging, and she hated it. Vulnerability was hell. In a second she would be forced to degrade herself, to become a victim. Victim. Victim. Victim. Victim. Bite me and I’ll kill you. She didn’t doubt it. Kill you. Kill you. Kill you. Please don’t please don’t please don’t please don’t. She couldn’t stop the tears. They clogged her throat and she tasted salt. No no no no no no no no please please no no no please no-_

“Liv! Liv it’s me! Can you hear me? Are you with me Olivia?” 

The mist of horror slowly rolled back from her vision. She noticed that she had her gun trained on her partner, not five feet away, finger on the trigger, shaking violently. She forced her muscles to move, to relax, to let her gun crash to the floor. Then the anger swelled up, a raging tide of raw fury. She slapped Elliot across the face, hard, satisfied to see pink finger marks bloom on his cheek. 

“WHY DID YOU COME INTO MY HOUSE?!?”

Elliot was running his fingertips gently over what was quickly becoming a sunset-colored blotch. He knew it had been stupid to try the door when she didn’t open it. Stupid to come in, knowing she would freak out. Knowing how out of it she must be if she had forgotten to lock it. Stupid. Selfish. 

He didn’t look angry, didn’t even look surprised. He looked hurt. Not even hurt because she slapped him, hurt for her. Hurt because she needed to slap him. 

“I’m sorry Olivia.”

“YOU’RE SORRY? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT...WHAT…” she didn’t know how to finish the sentence. 

“I see the ptsd looking through your eyes, Liv. Was it a flashback?”

“AND HOW EXACTLY WOULD THAT CONCERN YOU? YOU CAN’T JUST COME INTO MY HOUSE ELLIOT!”

“You’re hurting, Liv. You need to talk about it, or it will just-”

“DON’T YOU TELL ME WHAT I NEED! YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW-”

“Exactly. I don’t know. I want to know, Liv.” 

His face was changing before her eyes. It wasn’t Elliot, it was _him. You like it rough? I like a fighter._

“I BET YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW, WOULDN’T YOU? WHAT, THINK ALL THE DETAILS MIGHT FEEL PRETTY GOOD? TURN YOU ON? GET YOU OFF? WHAT?” 

Elliot’s face swam back into her vision. The rage turned to shame when she saw the pain in his eyes. Her voice dropped from the edge of screaming to barely a whisper.

“I’m sorry, El. That was horrible. He was there, he was...it wasn’t you.” 

She hated the tears making the light swim. They spilled over before she could get it together. Her face was crumpling and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t reign it in. She didn’t want him to see her like this, see her breaking, broken, wrecked, hurting. 

“Liv…”

It broke his heart to see her like this. The terror, anger, misery, shame, frustration, fear...it stung like it was his own. He took a cautious step toward her. She fell into him, as much to her surprise as to his, and the sobs took over her body, the pain controlling her, the memories clotting her blood and dulling her reality. His familiar scent washed over her, detergent and cologne. She hung onto him for dear life, hating that she needed him and yet needing him with every fiber of her being. 

He gently ran his fingers through her hair, his other hand rubbing circles over her back. He felt her shaking uncontrollably in his arms, her sobs finally allowed an outlet. This was a part of her he had never seen before. Before this, he was pretty sure she would rather have died than cracked. Maybe she still would. 

“It’s ok, Liv. It’s over. I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you think so far?? Am I capturing this well? I hope so! Let me know in the comments, any corrections or anything at all is more than welcome! Reviews are such great writing motivation, not to mention desperately needed human interaction with quarantine lol!  
> Have a cracker day, darling:)

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, can we just have a quick moment of silence for Mariska's superb acting in the "undercover" episode (not to mention the entire show)? <3<3<3
> 
> Drop me a comment if you please kind reader, they make my day:)


End file.
